Mass Effect: Alone We Die
by TheSev
Summary: (Please see my Profile for the full 'back of the book' synopsis) Kevin Folner is staring down the Reaper threat he knows is coming while still battling the lingering, tragic memories of friends and love lost when they took on a Reaper themselves. Unable to avoid the steady and ominous wave, he and his new companions are swept up in the carnage and slaughter.
1. Prologue

_**Prologue**_

"Lock everything down," said a tall, lithe man with a noticeable Irish accent as he directed several people in ragged lab coats that were scrambling about. "The last thing we need is some upstart 'dock guard' deciding that our cargo is worth more than his pay."

A middle-aged woman that was several inches shorter than him had passed nearby to halt her trek towards the airlock in order to twirl as she put on a coat to hide most of her underlying garb. "Liam, this is Illium, not Omega. We should be fine here." She tossed her straight gray-streaked auburn hair over her shoulder with her right hand once the jacket was on.

Liam McRoilie's brows creased together as he watched a few of his associates hang up torn and dirty lab coats to don their own crowd-blending apparel. "I don't care _where_ this is, Allison. Risks are risks, and we can't afford much in that regard. It took us a month to slip out of Cerberus's shadow, and the fewer the slip-ups the better."

Every blocky corridor of the _MSV Appalachian _had been a bustle of activity ever since they had docked. The six of them that remained from the original team of twenty had made this ship their home, and they needed to prepare the ship to take on one more tenant. She was to be the first non-human to join them since their exodus from the clandestine space station that housed the mainstay of their project's equipment and research. The alien they planned to take with them, an asari known as Maela T'Vess, was critical to their project's existence and success many years ago. That very project is almost 27 years old by now, and on the verge of extinguishing itself for reasons out of their control—at least until they get Maela on board.

The Irishman saw Allison purse her lips but she remained quiet. Instead of argue this time, she simply nodded once and turned to vanish into the ship to grab a few more things. Once she returned to him, he vainly attempted to flatten out a few creases in her jacket and kissed her forehead. "Come on, the sooner we find T'Vess the sooner we can get moving."

He had to slow down when walking down the yellow and black striped stairs that led to the airlock. He was well into his sixties now, and even though humans generally lived to be healthy at over one hundred years in modern days, he could still feel age catching up with him. His black hair was starting to get heavily streaked with grey and his cheeks were gaunter than they've ever been. _I'm no cripple,_ he decided, defiant against his own natural progression. _I've got many years left before these bones can't make the chase any longer._

Once through the heavy doors that led out of the _Appalachian_, Liam had to squint and bring a hand up over his face to block the immediate intensity of Tasale, the system's local star. He could see each of his companions doing the same. _It's been far too long since we've seen a bloody sun, _he thought._ Hopefully it won't be the last. _The air was heavy, hot, and smelled of a thick mix of filtered manufacturing air pollution, fresh packaging, and expelled sterile air straight from the surrounding office complexes and laboratories.

They had landed in Nos Jusra, a production-oriented city almost half a world away from the popular tourist front of Nos Astra, and the upbeat and colorful atmosphere of the trade capital was wholly replaced by a dingier ambiance akin to a shady cousin often covered in soot and grease. You don't like to look at him, you don't want to be seen with him, and you don't really want to touch him or get too close, but neither can you deny the fact that he's there or, moreover, is the go-to guy if you need work done.

Their ultimate destination here was a high-class research facility in the heart of the city—at least, if their source could be trusted. T'Vess had her namesake's genetics lab there, and while the security here wasn't on the same level nor held nearly as much infamy as Noveria's various labs, they still had to squeeze their way in. Lucky for them, a few old Cerberus contacts that had yet to be cut off managed to forge a few important meetings with Maela herself, granting Liam, Allison, and a bare handful of others the chance to convince the infamous asari xenobiologist and xenogeneticist to come with them. Failing that, they would have to resort to more… extreme measures. Liam prayed it wouldn't come to that.

"Liam, do you think Maela will come willingly?" Allison asked apprehensively as they weaved their way through a collection of dock equipment just outside their dock's umbilical ramp.

Liam halted his trek for a few seconds to let a train of hauled crates hover by. "Hard to say, but my gut says 'not bloody likely'. We'll essentially be asking her to walk away from everything she's worked for here. I get the feeling we might have to employ plan B before the day is done." _Lord help us if plan B isn't convincing enough,_ he thought direly.

The plan they drew up during their long flight from the choking hands of Cerberus's agents was simple and tiered into three parts with the second and third being contingency plans of the prior if things went awry. First, they would reach Maela under the guise of a business meeting to discuss a new project. They would have to swap topics to that of the project they once worked on together—the one that brought forth highly effective natural biotic human children into the world. _I can try an emotional angle,_ Liam decided. _Maybe that'll have more effect. She's almost a matron, maybe she can empathize on that…_

Plan B, the backup if that failed to sway Miss T'Vess's motives, was to use some channels and data dug up by an old Cerberus friend of Liam's to… moderately blackmail her into helping them out. Okay, well, blackmail is never really moderate, but he liked to think of it that way to soften the blow to his dignity. While Liam's contact assures him that the bait will be irresistible to Maela, he remembers how… unusual that asari is; how she'd get manic every time she became frustrated, how she'd almost quite literally spit in the face of adversity, and how her decisions often times didn't make a whole lot of clean sense. Just in case, they needed a Plan C.

Plan C was the least complicated of them all and by far the most likely to end in death. It more or less consisted of trying to kidnap Maela and steal her out of the research facility so they could drag her back to their ship. Liam wasn't trying to kid himself—none of them were any sort of agents or soldiers. If it came down to Plan C, success meant relying upon a heaping dose of luck slathered with coincidence. Naturally, this plan was an absolute last resort.

"Why are we risking our necks for this kid?" one of the other project members asked as he emerged into the sunlight. He was quickly regarded by all the others with contemptuous glares. Had this one forgotten what they had spent half their lives working on? Had he given up on the last surviving child they all brought into the world?

"One more question like that, Gerald, and you'll find yourself left behind, hogtied and dumped in an alleyway," said Allison amidst angry points and daggered glares, giving voice to much of the team's feelings on that sort of matter. "We've invested far, far too much to tolerate that kind of cynicism from anyone."

Liam felt obligated to elaborate in order to be sure Gerald hadn't _actually_ forgotten. "Don't be a moron, Gerald. You know as well as I do that Kevin's the last living subject of our life's work, and we don't exactly have the luxury of time. If he—"

"Yes, the final Neural Cascade, I know." The pale man, who was a few years Liam's senior, spat. "It just seems like we're going out of our way to get ourselves killed. If I remember correctly, Maela wasn't very fond of adversity and I'm not exactly trained to face asari biotics. Nor are any of you."

As many of the final preparations finished up and they locked down the _Appalachian_, the majority of the team began to follow Liam and Allison out onto the docks. Tension was high, evident on the faces of every sleep-starved individual that walked off of that ship. Liam placed a friendly hand on Gerald's shoulder as the man walked up to him. "Lord willing, it won't come to that. It's not like any of us are any more eager to stare down a biotic throw than you, Gerald. Just keep a cool head and remember the objective. We're not here to convince Maela to accept everything thrown at her, we're just here to get her off of this planet and into our jurisdiction."

Gerald looked off into the distance over Liam's shoulder, shrugged, then nodded to confirm his acquiescence. After he and the others walked off into the streets lightly crowded by slow-moving rivers of people, Liam and Allison brought up the rear of the group and began making their way through as well.

Following a collection of convenient signs that pointed out the major business and industrial-park skyscrapers of this area and the companies hosted within, they took a pair of cabs to the center of the city and followed the maze of bridges that connected building to building. Much to everyone's dismay, the scenery here wasn't nearly as attractive to look at as Nos Astra's, by far. It was full of dull colors, browns, beiges, pale blues, and off-whites. These buildings weren't meant to look pretty, they were meant to last as long as possible. Few of the shiny and colorful enamels used to coat the outside of the buildings in Nos Astra were considered 'durable' when stacked up against the hot sun all day and the occasional violent storm that pounded against the outer walls. Lastly, the horizon lacked the awe-inspiring view that Nos Astra claimed, as the Nos Jusra buildings were often more flat, stubby, and didn't fan out as far to create the jagged, sparkling barrier separating dirt and sky.

After a solid forty-five minutes of travel from their ship, they finally arrived at the office building that housed the "Maela T'Vess Center for Genetics Research". Liam read the large sign over the main door into the building from this skybridge and he zoned out for a moment. _I wonder just what she's done to get a research center named after her,_ he thought. _Moot point, I suppose. We need to get her out either way. It might be harder to convince her, though. She's clearly invested here…_

"Liam, stop stalling," Allison called back to him, turned half-way around to see him standing there, blank-faced. "It's time."

The Irishman sighed and nodded, moving quickly to catch up with the others. "Pray this doesn't all go to Hell in a handbasket," he said cautiously as he gave Allison's right hand a final squeeze before entering the building.

The nice and cool interior of the building was much more enjoyable than the sweltering heat outside. The light was more tolerable as well; the entire lobby was bathed in a collection of clean light-blues and sterile white lights at far fewer ambient lumens. Every surface, even the walls and ceiling, were smooth and polished to a reflective sheen. To top off the regal atmosphere of a business lobby, there were plants precisely placed in aesthetically pleasing spots along the corners and walls with a few by the receptionist's desk. Gerald pointed out a massive plaque by the double elevators that pointed out all of the various levels and what was housed in each.

Liam walked over to it with the others and inspected it with a hand cupping his chin. "Hmm. Floors thirty-six through forty-six are all dedicated to her labs. Where to go?" The whole group mulled over the problem for a minute or so before Allison walked up to the group from elsewhere.

"Maela's offices are on the forty-fifth floor," she declared with a hand on her hip.

"How do you know that?" Liam questioned while waving a few fingers at the plaque. "There's no indication of what floors have offices and what floors have—"

"I asked," she said simply as she started moving towards the elevators with a smirk on her face.

As everyone else fell in behind her, Gerald tapped Liam's shoulder with the back of his hand. "You're going to hear about that for weeks."

Liam squinted and shook his head, knowing that Gerald had the truth of it. "She never did miss an excuse to take advantage of my _extremely rare_ and _ever-minor_ lapses." They shared a chuckle and filed into the elevator.

On the ride up, Allison tugged at his sleeve. "Liam, the secretary at the desk mentioned off-hand that we're the second group to ask for Maela's offices."

Liam shrugged. "She's a big figure in the research field now. That's not really all that surprising, I'd say."

"Surprising? Maybe not. Coincidental? Even less so, _I'd_ say." Allison leaned in to give Liam that sideways glance that always spoke of uneasy, elevated suspicions. "Just keep it in mind, alright?"

Liam held her hands together for a short moment and he nodded to her. Not more than a few seconds later, the elevator doors opened wide revealing a well lit hall full of office doors, each with large glass windows to their right. The point of the windows seemed lost, as every single one had some object—from the backs of bulky furniture to various shades left down and closed—entirely obscuring whatever lay inside. They all moved down the near silent corridor until they spied a wall-mounted nameplate indicating Maela T'Vess's office.

"Here we are," Liam said casually as he tapped on the door access panel where he waited for the decorative metal barrier to slide into the wall to his left. Inside was a short hall lined with some kind of filing cabinets, all cracked open and overflowing with physical documents. Not more than a couple meters ahead, the hall made a ninety degree right turn into the office proper.

Before they could even get as far as that, however, flustered yelling caused them all to give pause.

"That's Maela, alright," Allison noted with a roll of the eyes. "In the middle of one of her frustrated fits, it sounds. I'd know that grating sound anywhere." Behind them, the door closed.

"Damn," cursed Gerald as he pressed knuckles to his hanging head. "We have some piss-poor timing. She's not going to want to hear us out _now_."

Just then they heard a second voice. A woman, calm and collected, making some indecipherable counter-arguments to Maela. The team of scientists crept forward to see if they could hear a little better and stopped just before the turn of the hall.

"Now _that_ voice I don't recognize," Allison quipped in a whisper, crossing her arms. "Sure wish she'd been the one we were dealing with back in the day."

Liam pressed an index finger to Allison's lips to keep her quiet. He inched his way closer to the corner so that he could get an even better ear on the conversation. He gestured to the others to stay quiet and pressed himself flat against the file cabinets at the precipice of the turn.

"Why do _you_ care?" Maela said angrily. "I was told that project was abandoned years ago!"

"We're simply tying up loose ends, Miss T'Vess," said the mystery woman. She sounded human to Liam's ears. "You know as well as I do that liabilities of the smallest sort can wreak some nasty havoc."

"Is that what I am to you idiots? A liability?!" Maela was quite infuriated by the sound of it. "Listen here, 'Miss Hasgrove', I don't owe your corporation or its smears of varren shit for an R and D team anything! If you think I'm—"

"There's no need to yell, Miss T'Vess," the unknown said, cool as ice. "We can be diplomatic about this or we can take a less savory path. I prefer the prior, if you don't mind."

"I hardly call pulling a gun on a geneticist 'diplomatic'," Maela said, her rage having suddenly fled in great amounts.

Liam's eyes went wide.

"Let's just call it a motivational factor in your compliance. No, don't move those pretty hands of yours. I'll not have any biotics flying about the fragile wealth of this room." A short silence followed that seemed to go on forever.

"What. Do. You. Want?" It sounded as though she were gritting her teeth through every word.

"As I said before, I want any and all documentation you have on the Symbiosis Experiment. You may know it as 'Project Evolution'."

Liam realized he had to move. _If I don't do something, Maela will be shot,_ he reasoned._ There's no way in hell she's going to let go of that data._ He shuffled around the corner as quietly as he could, much to the shocked dismay of his teammates. Lucky for him, the professionally-clad mystery woman with a Phalanx in her right hand had her back to him, aiming somewhere just to the right beyond his line of sight. Unfortunately, that also meant that Maela was out of sight as well, so he couldn't figure out just what kind of situation she was in. _That's a moot point, idiot, she's being questioned at gunpoint!_ he thought, gritting his teeth.

Maela was as defiant just as Liam expected. "That's some of my finest work. I don't care how clandestine that project was, I'd sooner dive into a thresher maw's mouth than let you walk away with that data."

The unknown woman brandished her pistol slightly. "May I remind you that you're not exactly in the position to be making any decisions here? It wasn't a request. Go get the documents or your head will join in decorating that shiny, plaque-covered wall of yours."

_Just a bit closer… _Liam was crouching as he moved towards the woman, but he was unarmed and she had a _gun_. He quickly searched his immediate area and found a huge, slender bottle used for transporting volatile liquids. It was empty, but if he could just hit her on the back of the head…

No good. When Liam moved to grab the bottle, his fingers pushed a second one that was blended in and unseeable behind it. The clanking noise it made when it fell over was more than enough to alert the woman. She quickly spun around, focusing the aim of that deadly pistol right at his head.

"Damnit…" Liam cursed as he stood upright and put his hands up, dropping the bottle to shatter on the ground at his feet.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?" the woman inquired fiercely.

It was all the time she needed. Maela, a deep blue skinned asari garbed in the classic labwork clothes of her people, produced a pistol of her own from somewhere under her desk. She took aim and fired without a second of hesitation. "You can kiss the crack of my ass, whore!" A single shot on the unshielded woman was all it took.

Liam flinched hard and shut his eyes reflexively as the shot rang out in the room and a warm, red liquid exploded from the center of the woman's throat to splatter on his face and clothes. He could hear the through-and-through whiz right by his head and impact the wall behind him. "Stop stop stop!" he yelled out, his brush with death causing panic to take over for a split second.

"Who the—" Maela scowled at Liam, looking as if she were to shoot him without a second thought. The shot never came though, and her face morphed through several emotions as recognition came to her. "Dear Goddess, it's _you_," she spat, her tone full of disdain. "More of you lackwit Cerberus goons come to steal my work. Either your timing is hilariously bad, or you lot have quite a fondness for getting shot."

Liam, arms still up in surrender, looked down at the body on the floor amidst a growing pool of blood. "S-she's with Cerberus?" He shook his head. _Bugger all, how can they already be here?!_

"Tried to pass of as a worker of New Dawn Pharmaceuticals, but any idiot in the industry knows they're just a front. Personally, I don't give two shits about what they do, but the moment they step onto my floor with a gun in hand, they're crossing way too many lines."

She fell silent for a moment and tilted her head, studying Liam. He found he was suddenly not in a talkative mood and instead focused on trying not to hyperventilate. That and keep his hands up as though it might save him from any bullets careening his way.

T'Vess squinted at him and gave the gun a little shake to spur the human on. "Well, you didn't know she was here, so your timing is, indeed, hilariously bad. What do you want, McRoilie? I have half a mind to take your head off too and save myself whatever trouble you brought with you."

Liam forced himself to find his voice. "J-just hear me o-out, Maela. P-please, p-put the gun down, I'm not here to steal anything, I swear!"

Maela stared at him intently for a good minute or so with a massive frown taking over her face before she lowered the gun. "Stop blinking so fast, it always made you look pathetic."

Once the gun was down, Liam let out a long held breath and let his arms fall to his side. One more long breath steadied his lungs so he could speak more comprehensively. "T'Vess, there's a matter that urgently needs your attention. We came here looking for help."

"We?" the asari asked, her brows furrowing.

Liam turned around to call back to the hallway behind him. "Guys, come on out. It's… safe now. Relatively speaking." Shortly after, Allison, Gerald, and a few others cautiously stepped into the room from around the corner.

"Oh Goddess, there's _more_ of you?!" She growls loudly, as if her day just couldn't get any worse. "Why aren't you all dead? Ugh! The hell do you all want from me?"

"Maela, we're not with Cerberus anymore. We got out," Allison said, trying to hold her tongue.

The asari threw her head back in exasperation. "Is that supposed to make me feel happy about this… _impromptu visit_ of yours? And what does that even have to do with why you're here, anyway?"

Liam stepped forward, hands folded politely in front of him. "Maela, we need your help. Project Evolution _wasn't_ cancelled years ago. It was active only until a couple months ago."

T'Vess's daggered glare softened a little as curiosity took hold. "Go on."

Liam was a bit surprised. He expected more resistance. _Now! Explain it now, or you'll never get the chance! _The Irishman pulled at the neck of his collar, cleared his throat and continued. "The subjects that were the result of our work—of _your_ work—lived and went on to become adults. But there's a problem with their nervous system and they suffer from catastrophically disabling events we've come to call 'Neural Cascade Incidents'." Liam grew quiet. Gravely quiet. "They've…" He had to clear his throat again, as if it were suddenly clenching of its own free will. "They've proven deadly on more than one occasion."

"How many occasions, exactly?" Maela asked, her tone much softer now.

Liam closed his eyes and thought a moment. The lives they had nurtured and watched all those years flashed by in his mind and he had to take a deep breath to maintain his composure. "All but one."

Maela's brows crashed together, but not so much in anger like before. She drew in a deep breath of her own. "Just… one? Which one?"

"Kevin Folner. Remember? That spunky one that kept pushing the blocks into the other kids. Last we heard, he was still alive and residing on Omega for some God-forsaken reason."

She shook her head, a frown taking over her features again. She closed her eyes slowly. "So why come to me if all but one are dead?"

"We weren't idle while our… _subjects _were dying off." He had to struggle to call them that. They were their children in his heart. The children of all the remaining team, including T'Vess, but he wouldn't say that in front of her. Not here in _this_ place. "We eventually found the cause, the NCIs, but there's no known equipment that can interface with a human's entire nervous system and neural paths the way we need in order to correct the problem before the fatal NCI occurs. We hoped you had some solution for this, but our time is very short. If you'd come with us to find Kevin…" He left the rest unsaid.

Maela fell silent as she looked to the floor for her answers. A time of silence that felt very near to an eternity passed before the asari looked back up to the humans in her office, her composure resolute. It was clear a one-time only decision had been made.

"Sorry, but I can't help you. I have too much work here, too much investment to stop and head off to deal with one last surviving experiment. If you manage to drag him here I could see if I can free up one of my labs. Other than that, you'll have to solve this problem without my expertise this time." She turned away and started back towards her desk, reaching for her intercom.

Liam's heart sank into his gut. If she wasn't invested in this project anymore, they'd be hard-pressed to get her to bother even if they stole her out. All at once plans B _and_ C seemed pointless and far too much trouble for the worth.

Allison took a step forward and Liam held out an arm to stop her. "Allison, don't." He knew she was going to jump right to blackmail and somehow he knew that would do little to faze Maela. Instead, he took a step of his own and folded his hands out in front of him. Time to appeal to that emotional angle. "Maela, _please._ This is all we have. Kevin's your child just as much as ours."

Maela tensed visibly when Liam called Kevin her 'child', but she still managed to call to her secretary over the intercom. "Selira, please send in a cleaning crew. Someone left a huge mess on my floor." After the acknowledgement came from her contact, the asari turned back to Liam and the others, her face scrunched up. "Look, maybe you haven't heard, but I'm not exactly the most sentimental geneticist out there. I'm _not_ coming with you. Now do I have to call security or can you find the exit by yourselves?"

The other scientists looked to Liam and the Irishman frowned hard. _One last shot,_ he thought, losing hope. _Maybe I can appeal to her pride in her professional career._ "Maybe you're not the most sentimental, but you _are_ the most qualified. Such a shame that talent's going to waste after all these years, especially when we bring in amateurs to help us find a solution and they get credit for your work."

With that, Liam turned on his heels and started for the exit of the room. There were only two notable sounds in that room just then; the sounds of their exiting footfalls and the asari's teeth grinding harshly. Once out in the halls, the scientists huddled in a circle.

Gerald was the first to speak once the office door was shut. "_That_ went well. What do we do now?"

Allison was red-faced with rage. "I swear to God, I'm going to go back in there and strangle that bitch! We all worked for years on this project and she just up and pisses on our one chance to redeem it? Aaaugh!"

"What happened to sticking to the plan, Liam?" One of the other since-silent scientists, named Jeremy, asked.

Allison punched Liam square on the shoulder. "Yeah! What happened back there, Liam? You abandoned our whole plan! Remind me not to let you design team efforts ever again."

"Everyone calm down," Liam said, straining to keep his voice down and waving palm-down hands up and down to help in that. "She obviously didn't have any interest in the project anymore. None of our other methods would have done anything to warrant her help even if they succeeded in getting her out with us one way or another. They might have just gotten us thrown in prison instead! Is that what you all want?"

The team shifted uncomfortably and fell silent as they considered the question. Liam had the truth of it. He could see it in all their faces. It was then that a trio of asari in cleaning uniforms pushed passed the huddled group and went into Maela's office without a word.

Gerald waved a hand in the middle of the group. "Okay then, back to my still-unanswered question: What do we do now?"

Liam placed fists on his hips and he sighed as his eyes fell to the floor. After a brief moment of thought, he said, "We'll go to Omega without her. Maybe with Kevin's advanced state of decay… Maybe we'll see something we couldn't with the others and get a solution in before it's too late."

"I'm not sure I like those odds," Allison admitted, her rage finally cooling.

"Nor do I," Liam said with a regretful shake of the head, "but it's all we have right now. This," he said while gesturing towards the office door, "is a dead end."

"To Omega, then?" Gerald asked, ever the astute one.

Liam nodded sternly. "No more detours. It's time we paid our last a visit."

The team all nodded in response and turned to leave the same way they came. Before they could get very far, however, the asari cleaners walked out with a bagged up corpse in their hands, a mix of shock and disgust on their faces as they hurried on by the scientists again. Liam got some especially funny looks thanks to the many red splotches that dotted his clothes and face.

Allison leaned in and whispered with one hand flat along the side of her mouth. "Mmm, I think you should probably wash up before we head for the shuttle, Liam…"

It was only then that it struck him. "Allison, didn't you say there was a _group_ that inquired after Maela's offices before us?"

"Yeah, but like I said, it was an off-hand comment. She probably wasn't really paying attention."

Liam didn't respond to that, but he looked back towards the office door and stared cautiously before continuing towards the elevator with the others. _Are there others? _he wondered. _What's going to happen when we walk away? Could we do anything even if we were here? _The answer, he knew, was a painful 'no', and tried to push those thoughts from his head.

Back down in the streets of Nos Jusra, the team began weaving their way through the streets again, making their way towards the somewhat distant docks where their ship was. The others were laughing at a joke someone had made when the deafening sound of an explosion and shattering glass filled the air behind them. The sudden crash of sound caused Liam to duck reflexively and nearly piss himself. Immediately the streets turned to chaos and it was all they could do to stay close to each other and standing upright as to not get trampled. They collectively fought their way through the torrent of screaming, flailing bodies to reach the side of the street where the dangerous waves of flesh and metal and cloth were far less hazardous.

"Oh my God…" Allison said, horrorstruck, as she pointed up at the massive skyscraper they had just come from.

High up on the side, fire and smoke was spewing from a large window in the center of a deformed circle of other glassless windows. A couple Nos Jusra police skycars were just beginning to arrive. One flew down to the walkways to ensure no one was seriously injured by falling debris.

"How much do you want to bet that was Maela's office?" Gerald shouted amongst the shrieking ambiance.

Liam began to began to grit his teeth in anger. "She should have come with us!" _I should have stuck to the plan…_

Gerald grabbed both Allison and Liam by the arms and started pulling them off the street and towards the docks. "Come _on_, you guys! Don't forget we're trying to escape Cerberus too! If they're here, it's the last place we want to be!"

Liam was dragged stumbling a few meters before he found his legs and started to walk briskly with the others. "Damn them! Damn them all!" he said loud enough for the others to hear. _How is it that those God-forsaken mongrels are at or ahead of us every step of the way?_ The fists clenched at his side further gave away his displeasure. "At least we could have brought Kevin here before, but now? Now we can't even contact her for advice, much less use her labs! How many people do you think are going to note the 'gaggle of humans' entering and leaving right before that… that blast!?"

"We tried, Liam. Let's just get to Omega before things get worse." Allison had a hand searching for a way to lace fingers with his left hand and failing.

_Spare me, Allison! You were just as angry as I am not too long ago! _is what he wanted to say, but his mouth had clamped itself shut to prevent such an outburst.

Barely a few minutes of ensuing chaos and fearful speed-walking later, the cab call platform spread out in front of them. Or at least, they _thought_ that's where it was. The platform they had entered this area of the city on earlier was now absolutely smothered in fleeing individuals. They were still somewhat as frantic as they were when the explosion split the air, and anyone attempting to hail a cab there risked getting trampled, inadvertently choked, or shoved over the railings and off of the platform.

"Bugger that!" Gerald exclaimed above the din of the panicked crowds. "We're better off finding another way out of the district!"

Liam nodded in agreement. _There's one problem, though,_ he thought. _We don't _know_ any other way out of the region._ "Does anyone actually know of a different way out?" he asked, knowing the answer.

The shaking heads confirmed his fears and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt defeated, as though all his efforts were for nothing even though the thought was premature since they hadn't even gone to Omega. _Cerberus has been doing that to a lot of people lately_, he supposed, but it didn't make him feel any better about it. Maela's death was a nasty pitfall of a crater in the road, and he had to figure out how to get around it. It didn't help that they were already short of options.

Entirely stumped on how to proceed in the timely fashion that he needed, he sighed and let his shoulders slump. He was more or less resigned to just take his chances with the mob at that point.

Only…

Not more than a few seconds after that, a voice called out to him. It was a familiar voice, if a bit winded, and far more amiable than it had any reason to be. When Liam turned to confirm is most hopeful suspicions, he was more than pleased to see Maela T'Vess running towards the docks. Everyone's eyes went wide with both shock and relief.

Her clothes were lightly scorched all over, but she see seemed relatively unhurt. How she managed to survive a bomb blast, he'll probably never know. She slowed to a trot just before reaching the spot where Liam was standing and bent down to rest her weight on her knees with her hands so she could catch her breath. It wasn't until then that it became evident to Liam that she was favoring her left leg.

"Got… the… bastard…" she wheezed.

Liam waited until she could speak normally again before asking. "I thought you—"

Maela held a hand up in front of his face to silence him. "I changed my mind. Uh, with a little motivation from suspicious persons and their… fiery toys of course." Before Liam could get any other responses in, she was already limping her way towards a relatively empty side of the street near the cab platform. She beckoned the others, who were staring wide-eyed at the asari ghost, to follow her there.

"Does this mean you're on board with our problem?" Liam asked as he caught up to her shortly after she began moving. He saw the eyes of the group light up expectantly as they hurried to follow along.

Maela opened up her omni-tool and tapped a few times on the glowing haptic adaptive interface. For a while she remained silent, avoiding the question and churning turmoil in their hearts. Once the large, private cab descended from the sky and parked next to them, she nodded and then cocked her head to the side. "I have no machines that can accomplish what you all want. I'm going to tell you that right now." A couple groans echoed above the still prevalent aural chaos despite the obvious easy escape from the city. "I do have an idea on how to get around that problem, but…"

"But? But what?" Allison shot out, anxious to have some solutions.

The asari didn't answer right away but gestured for everyone to have a seat in the cab, and quickly. The nearby mob easily noticed the lone, fancy transport landing away from the group, and some of them felt they would not be denied. Within a few seconds, the scientists and the asari had all taken seats within the vehicle and the doors started to close to prevent the oncoming swarm from getting in.

"Well?!" Allison shouted alongside pleading gestures, her patience long since worn thin.

Maela smirked deviously as Illium disappeared behind the cab doors. "Well… You're probably not going to like it."


	2. Chapter 1: The Suit

_**Chapter 1**_

_**The Suit**_

"Just the usual today Bolak," said a male quarian in the common trade language as he sat down on a stool amidst a line of bar patrons leaning on a counter. His accent was typical and his envirosuit was devoid of colored clan fabrics. "Water. On the rocks."

The bartender, probably the most amiable batarian he'd ever had the fortune to meet, gave the quarian a sidelong glance with all four eyes as he leaned on the opposite side of the counter with an elbow. "You ever gonna man up, Renlof? Get a real drink. Got a nice shipment of Shard Ale in the other day. Prime stuff, and I might even knock a few credits off the top to entice you."

"You're so kind to offer me such a strong _levo_ drink at a discount. I'll pass." The quarian propped up one of his misshapen legs so he could place his heel on a crossbar under his seat.

Misshapen to anyone but him, of course, and it always seemed to come up in every possible casual conversation. His suit's legs from the knee down had been replaced with a human's hardsuit equivalent, and they didn't have the backward bend that normal quarians had. The feet didn't have the three-toe split, either. If you had only seen this quarian from below the knee, one might mistake him for a human.

Kev'Renlof vas Del'Kellius's explanation on that grotesque modification was different every time it needed explaining. Sometimes it was "Birth defect, but not so bad that I couldn't make it on the flotilla," other times it was "Broken in a fight with a krogan," and sometimes even "Replacement experimental cybernetics. Quarians are hardly overlooked when potentially dangerous experiments need testing on live subjects." Still, every now and then he felt compelled to sprinkle truth on his story and explain it as, "A nasty in-the-field injury with an in-the-field fix that saved my life." People generally got the hint it wasn't something he liked talking about and those that didn't found that any further questions just caused him to walk away without another word.

The batarian bartender shrugged and filled a glass with cold water and plucked some cubes of marginally clear ice out of a cooler to drop them in. Backwards for any drink on the rocks, but it hardly mattered when it was water. "Bah, you dextros are always complaining about that. _Levo_-this and _levo_-that."

"With good cause, you bosh'tet," Kev said amidst a chuckle. He knew the batarian was just being his usual stubborn self. It didn't bother him—rather it reminded him of himself sometimes. "You head to a turian colony and see how much thought they give to your stupid levo drinks."

"Small chance of that," Bolak said as he leaned back against the chilled wall-size drink rack and began to shine up a few glasses with a rag, much to Kev's amusement. "You know just as well as I that getting off of this piss-hole of a station is more trouble than it's worth."

The quarian raised his glass towards the batarian. "Indeed. One day I might bother to try, though. I do have people out there I want to see."

"Must be nice," Bolak said with just a hint of bitterness as he started to aggressively wipe down another glass. "Most anyone I know is here on Omega. All my old friends were killed back in the Skyllian Blitz. Damn humans…"

"Keelah, not this again. That story's starting to get old, Bolak. Even to me."

The bartender blinked his upper set of eyes, unconsciously giving away his irritation. He seemed to let it go after a brief silence. "Yeah, yeah. Can't really call you out on that either, being quarian and all."

"Not looking for pity. I know that whole exile story gets old to others just as much."

A new patron down somewhere to the right flagged Bolak down and he raised a finger to ask Kev to hold on a moment. Meanwhile, Kev swirled his untouched glass of water for a moment while he waited for his conversation partner to return. The cubes within klinked softly, audible even over the din of the pub, as the resulting micro current spun them. He reached under the jaw of his helmet and pressed a pair of pressure buttons on both sides and a short, durable tube snapped out. This 'straw' pointed down with a slight forward angle, the pivot sitting under the chin. He dipped it into the water and sipped the refreshingly cool liquid up.

A few moments later, Bolak returned to mix a drink for the one who flagged him down and he spoke to Kev while working on it. "I'm sorry, Renlof. Just seems every time there's something that gets me down, the source of the problem is that Blitz or some other human-thing."

The batarian slid the full tankard down the smooth counter towards the requesting patron and he settled back into his relaxing lean against the rack of bottles. Kev watched it as it glided gracefully to a stop right into a krogan's big, meaty hand. He wondered if said krogan could even appreciate the finesse that went into such a precise and calculated shove, or how much work went into keeping the bar counter as smooth and clean as it was to even be able to do it in the first place.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Anyways, am I late? Have I missed my party? Should be one today if I recall." The party Kev was referring to was likely a small band of amateur mercs sent to take him in. He had been taking on contracts of various sorts since he fell into Omega in hopes of getting Aria's attention and potentially earning some of her trust. That, and enough credits to ship himself off of the blasted station and somewhere where he can buy a decent small ship. His job, a hitman for hire, tended to require that he stay mobile.

Unfortunately, the only contracts to land his way tended to focus on taking out certain upstart members of the various gangs on Omega, and while these often came straight from Aria's henchmen, he wasn't getting anywhere with Omega's queen. This wasn't really unexpected, but it _was_ frustrating. _It's because I'm quarian, isn't it?_ he thought. The problem with hitting gang members, as he's long known, has been the blowback that the gangs often sent his way to remove him from the contract business altogether. Much to their fatal dismay, Kev was far too cautious to be caught and he was adept at fighting off the amateurs they tended to hire to take him in.

"Don't think so. Haven't seen anyone come in with guns drawn yet, anyhow. You said you were expecting some?" The batarian put down the current, well-shined glass he was working on and moved a step forward to lean on the counter with one hand.

"Always, my friend. There's never a shortage of cheap cannon fodder that these groups just can't seem to resist hiring, especially here on Omega. It's practically the credit-a-dozen merc capital of the galaxy."

"True enough." Bolak seemed to have more to add to that, but he never finished. All four of his eyes focused on some newcomers in the doorway somewhere behind Kev. Just after taking a moment to visually scan the armed patrons, Bolak tapped the three fingers of his hand on the counter twice on the glossy surface rather nonchalantly, and the middle a third time.

_Two humans and a krogan, _he knew. _The krogan is in the middle, and will more than likely be the one to approach me. How to play this one… The helpless quarian kid? No, my rep's too loud for that now. Might as well do the usual, but I'll need just a split second of distraction if I want to keep all my parts. Been a while since I've dealt close quarters blows to krogan._

Kev stared at the many shined glasses and equally reflective bottles on the wall not four feet in front of him. With so many tiny, unnoticed mirrors to tell him exactly what was going on behind him, and he'd never even have to turn around and look. He was using them now—three silhouettes in the light of the doorway with guns of some sort in hand. One on the left and right sides each, appearing human in their stature. The center one was a hulking shadow looming towards him with the very distinct stomps of a krogan trying to puff up his own presence to intimidate others.

This little detail told Kev that the krogan was young, new to the merc business, and so much the amateur that he _just might_ give Kev the window he'll need to handle this situation quickly and efficiently. Older, more experienced krogan didn't do this; they let the intimidation factor flow freely from their reputation, signs of battle experience, and general existence of being krogan.

He only wished this method didn't bump his rep and attract even more hateful guns.

When the krogan stepped up behind Kev, the first thing he did was make his armed presence known by shoving the barrel end of what appeared to be a Scimitar-class shotgun into the quarian's back. It was a little difficult to tell exactly what model the shotgun was due to the naturally warped images the curved reflections gave him.

The krogan wasted no time in grumbling his instructions. "Alright, suitrat, let's get this over with. Hands up and turn around. We've got places to be and credits to collect."

Kev didn't move.

Bolak chimed in. "Look guys, take this crap outside. I've got enough problems keeping Darg placated without you assholes coming in and kidnapping my patrons."

The krogan glared at the bartender, but not far enough away for Kev to make his move. "Here's a bit of advice, crap-for-brains. Don't piss off a krogan doing his job unless you want some of his attention. We krogan don't have an easy time splitting attention spans, and I might take you and the suitrat both to make it easier on myself." He jabbed Kev again, harder this time and rumbling with deep growls. "I'm not gonna ask a second time, shitstain. Get up and get moving!"

Kev still did not move, and he noticed a few patrons sitting at tables behind him and off to his right relocating to other tables. When the krogan realized that his target, more recently known as 'The Suit', wasn't going to come along easily, he turned to look back at his two toadies, presumably to give orders to force him to comply. Kev never gave him that chance.

"You two, g—"

It all happened within a couple seconds. As he saw the krogan look away, Kev kicked off of the footrest that ran along the base of the bar counter to put himself in a counter-clockwise spin as he rose to his feet. As he turned, he drew his heavily modified Kassa Fabrication M-5 Phalanx and turned it horizontally while he pointed it sharply off to his left. When he rotated enough to have the krogan directly in front of him, the barrel-end of the pistol cracked hard against the side of the krogan's head. At the moment of impact, he fired.

A few patrons wailed in fright at the sound of a gunshot, and krogan brain matter scattered across the recently evacuated tables. Hired muscle intent on keeping the peace on the owner's credits had their weapons drawn and ready, but didn't seem like they felt they had to intrude. They had seen this before and visibly had little worry as to what the outcome might be.

The next part Kev knew was the hardest, especially since he hadn't done this dance with a krogan before. He knew that the armed mercs in the doorway weren't going to risk losing this suddenly-increased pay day, and he saw one immediately take aim with his M-8 Avenger. The difficulty of this part was mainly in keeping the krogan upright enough to provide a substantial meat shield. The immense weight of the limp beast was, on its own, more than Kev could ever hope to hold up, but lucky for him this one was clad in ample heavy armor. He gave the upper half of the body a tug while holding it just so to keep it upright. Down low, the knees and the thick armor of the legs over said knees locked to provide a natural stand. As long as he kept the dead weight balanced atop those locked legs, he could hold the body upright enough for cover.

The merc on the left took several potshots at Kev in a kneejerk response to the sudden loss of his squadmate, but the dead krogan's kinetic barriers and thick body took every shot. Kev wasted no time and brought his pistol up beside the messy remains of his meat shield's head and fired off three precise shots—two to kill the hardsuit's barriers, and one to put a hole through the once-confident merc's helmet. The body fell backwards like a ragdoll in the same instant the red mist sprayed from the back of his head.

The second and only remaining merc started to raised _his_ Avenger in response to the shots in his direction, but Kev adjusted his aim for the new target and put a warning shot in his kinetic barriers. "Just… don't. Be a good boy and drag your buddy out and walk away."

This merc at least had enough wits left to save his life. After a nasty flinch from the warning shot, he slowly put his hands up and let the rifle dangle on his finger by the trigger guard. Once given some quick advice, he scrambled to do as he was bid. He left a red smear on the ground as he dragged the armor-clad squadmate out of sight.

Kev, his arm now shaking from the incredible strain of keeping the krogan upright, gave the uncomplaining barrier a shove and sent it tumbling forward. The thud the corpse made when it smacked on the ground echoed around the room, followed shortly by a few sniggers from some unnamed patrons somewhere in the room. He let go of a held breath and rotated his left shoulder, which had begun to tingle from the stress it was under. Once he was sure the last merc wasn't coming back, he turned around and sat back down in his stool.

"Sorry for messing your place up again, Bolak," Kev said in a tone of disinterest as he tossed a small collection of credits on the bar to account for the cleaning costs.

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to my boss," said Bolak with amusement as he collected the credit chits from the counter and stashed them somewhere under the counter. He quickly called upon a few of those standing around the outside of the room to do something with the dead krogan on the floor. "He's liable to crush your skull between his thighs for shooting up his bar again."

Kev chuckled and waved dismissively. "Darg is more like to get a laugh from seeing that last guy piss his armor as he ran off." Quash Darg, the current owner of Fortune's Den, was an uproarious krogan through and through, after all.

"No, take it out. I don't know, toss it out the airlock or something!" Bolak shouted at the two turians and krogan who were drawing a thick red line across the floor with the dead krogan's head as they dragged him. Once they had finally gotten that mess out he turned back to Kev with an insolent smirk. "You wouldn't think that after seeing how he handled the last quarian to fire a gun in here. Before you came along, anyways." The batarian smirked knowingly. "Heard she was rushed to the nearest clinic soon as she was thrown out."

"That's probably because she did something stupid, like shoot an employee."

Bolak nodded, chuckled, and then shook his head in amusement as he recalled the memory. After he had his laugh, he looked up and flicked a thumb down the bar somewhere off to Kev's left. "Group of regulars just walked in. They're a picky bunch, so I'm going to have to abandon you."

"Oh no, don't leave the poor quarian to his water! I don't think he can handle that kind of rejection!"

"You're a piece of work, kid," was all Bolak had to say before heading off to tend his new arrivals.

Kev threw a dismissive air-shove of a wave at the batarian as he watched him leave. He had only returned to silently sipping his water for a few seconds when he saw the krogan Bolak had previously served relocate to the stool next to him. He could swear there was a gravity well around this one, so great was his mass.

"Amateurs," rumbled the newcomer. "Shoulda never taken his eyes off of his prey like that."

Kev hardly even looked up. "Hey Targold. That was you watching down there?"

"Hah. Don't make it sound like you didn't know I was there the whole time. The Kevin I know never misses something as fat as me."

Kevin flicked an accusatory finger at his old friend. "I told you not to call me that in public, man. Too many ears out here."

Targold laughed—a deep-throated boom that could practically carry through Omega's thick metal walls. "I'd rather risk that then call you that sorry excuse for a quarian alter ego. What was it? Your name backwards or something?"

"I find it amusing that you've managed to puzzle it out while the rest of Omega hasn't." He once again sipped up a gulp of water. Kevin Folner hadn't put a whole lot of creative effort into his new quarian name when he forged it, but it wasn't meant to be elaborate. It only needed to serve its purpose. "Anyhow, it worked, didn't it?"

"I think it has more to do with the fact that ninety percent of the people with enough brain cells to do it just couldn't be bothered to give a damn," said the krogan as he waved his near-empty tankard of ryncol at the general public currently enjoying the Den.

"You're such an uplifting individual, Targold. Remind me to look for you whenever I need encouragement on my past accomplishments." Kevin smiled to himself at the idea of Targold being a positive guy then shook his head at the prospect.

"Speaking of quarians," started Targold after a quick quaff of his toxic drink, "you ever make contact with that fleet of theirs? I remember you trying pretty hard to get to them."

Kevin shook his head. "Nah, I gave up a couple weeks ago. It's been nearly two months since I came back from that planet on the edge of dark space. What would I tell them? 'Hi, sorry for waiting so long to tell you, but every single one of your people are dead'? 'Oh, by the way, there's nothing but geth and worse out there'?" He sighed and his head sank a bit involuntarily.

Those wounds were still fresh for him. Memories of his time as part of the venerable elite quarian squad, the first Xelvas'taersh to exist since the exile, still plagued his thoughts on a regular basis. They were a motley bunch; a bunch of quarian Migrant Fleet Marines, an ex-STG salarian, who was the brother of his best friend, and himself—a human shoved into a mutilated quarian environmental suit.

He remembered the good times they had together, the trying times during and after missions, and the relationships he forged with each. Siri'Kortel with her calm wisdom and true captain's heart; Tyr'Garloh with his elder knowledge and staunchest of heads; Riik'Votis with his strong passion and short temper; Tosh'Rolush with his quiet courage skill in software; Bela'Merni with her fiery nature and constant flirtations; Kar'Welkas, the rookie who'd take on the galaxy for you, Ralik Dolannus, his first companion of the adventure and brother to best friend Tarsil Dolannus…

And Arla'Tavval vas Kellius with her pride, her arrogance, her incredible body, her high aspirations… The woman who stole his heart, felt his warmth, experienced his intimacy, and would have been his closest companion in mind and body until the end of days. He had never loved anyone in this wide galaxy as he'd loved her. They would have given everything to each other, he was sure of it. They all would have given each other everything.

Would have, had she—had _they_ not died.

It killed him to create those gravestones in the middle of his ship's wreckage, every one of them a blade to his heart. Arla's was the hardest and sharpest by far. He left hers for last, hoping to steel his resolve some by the time he had to place it. By the time he had finished carving the last letters in the jagged unearthed rock face, he had begun to weep for the first time since his childhood. Things were never the same after her death, as if the galaxy had altogether lost a portion of the color spectrum when her life gutted out under the fiery piece of the broken Kellius.

The last he saw of those gravestones, out on some planet that wasn't even a planet at the very farthest edge of the galaxy, was as he saluted to them all for the service to the galaxy at large. For braving the unknown and facing down an entire fleet of rogue geth just to cross an unmapped relay. For finding wonders he'd never even thought to find anywhere and taking documentation of it all. For finding a sleeping beast of the most impossible kind, and facing it as it woke. For destroying a thing so terrible that it once took an entire fleet of the Alliance Navy to bring its kin down.

_I have not forgotten, you bloody bastards. Come as you will, we've beaten you before and we will again._

Targold brought his thoughts back as he gave an exaggerated shrug. "No skin off of my hump either way, kid. I was just curious. You need to get over that lot, and the sooner the better." He nearly emptied the tankard this time, and little dribbles of ryncol fell off of the sides of his jaw.

"Just let it be, Targold. You know I hate talking about them," Kevin said, feeling a shade more depressed than before.

"Hah, right." He finished off the last bit of his drink and slammed the durable cup upside down on the counter to signal the bartender for another. "What you need to do is get your balls back out of that suit and find a female to mate with until you stop caring about that shit."

Kevin gave Targold a reproachful stare, and while he knew the krogan couldn't see his face, the universally understandable angle of his head told all.

Targold quickly performed a double-take when he noticed Kevin's reaction. "What? It works for me. Here, let me help you out a little." The stool under him whined loudly as he shifted to look at the amalgam of patrons behind him. "That asari right there. See her? The one looking all over the place as if she's expecting her best friend to show up and knowing she never will?"

Kevin decided to humor Targold by turning to see who he was talking about. He knew the blasted krogan wouldn't stop until he did. The one he was pointing at, paranoid-looking asari in classic asari scientist garb and little in the way of defense, met his eyes only once as he looked, though she glazed over him as though he wasn't even there. "Yeah, what about her?"

"A bit squishy for my tastes, but I've had enough asari to know she's one fine piece of ass. Go over there and make her day, Folner."

Kevin sighed and brought a hand to the visor of his helmet. "And why, pray tell, would she even consider me as a bedmate?" It was a hopeless question to ask, he knew, but the more he let Targold run with it, the longer it would be before he'd hear it again.

The krogan smiled; a fearsome thing it was, all oddly colored, sharp teeth and remnants of ryncol. "Probably because she's been asking around Omega for Kevin Folner for two days now. What, you didn't know?"

_That_ got Kevin's attention, no doubt as Targold expected it would. He looked at the asari with more interest this time, his eyes lingering for a while. His friend was right about one thing, she was incredibly attractive. She wore tight white and cyan clothes that accentuated every curve, as the asari had a longstanding expertise with, and her face was shapely to the point where it seemed to make the rest of the room lose color. Her dark blue skin had the supple quality of a maiden-stage, yet her eyes spoke of the wisdom of a matron. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes as well, and Kevin could not help but find that excited him. Truth be told, Kevin could feel a slight flush that had crept onto his face.

More importantly, she'd been asking for him. _Him._ Despite not having shown his face here since he had collected that bounty on Linus many months back, she was here looking for _him_. He considered going over to talk to her, but he was wary. Targold had a habit of using these unusual wiles for a krogan to get him to do things he would have otherwise avoided. He had to know, though. He had to.

"I did not. Well then, this changes everything," Kevin announced as he stood from his seat. "I think I'll go over there and make her day."

Targold gave a half-laugh, half-growl of victory. "Hah-haaaarrr, that's the Kevin I know! Make her squeal nice and good, kid. She looks like she needs it." He gave Kevin a firm pat on the back, a move that nearly sent the quarian-clad human stumbling into a nearby table.

He would make her day, but not with pillow play.

Kevin sauntered over towards the asari with strides full of a confidence quarians on Omega seldom ever sported. The moment he was within talking distance, he grabbed a seat from another and slid it over to hers, as she had intentionally removed all the others. He leaned to the side and propped his tube-ridden head up on a hand supported by an elbow as though he were drinking her in, admiring her. This might have been true to some extent. Her eyes slowly moved from the datapad she was reading to him, almost nonplussed as to why a quarian would dare sit with her.

"The hell do _you_ want?" she asked in pure disdain, squinting as if slivered eyes would be an effective deterrent.

Kevin moved his head up and down to signify the fact that he was checking her out. Those tight clothes did not disappoint when it came to curves. "You're a pretty one," he said in his well-practiced quarian accent. "What's your going rate? I'm immune-boosted and I have credits on hand if you can go tonight."

The look on her spoke half of disgust and half of murder. "Get lost, you immune-deficient sack of shit. Do I look like a whore to you?"

Kevin performed the exaggerated nod again. "Uhh, yes. Yes you do. Are you saying you're not?"

"Ugh, Goddess…" She reached down under the table, presumably to one of her thighs, and she pulled out a pistol, whereupon she immediately shoved the barrel end right in front of his face. "There. Does that make it clear?"

Kevin laughed and laid the arm propped up on the table flat so he could lean in. He heard the light _tink_ as the pistol came in contact with his visor. He could see part way down the inside of the barrel, and he was glad for the helmet's natural ability to obscure facial twitches and sweat. He already knew this woman was unstable, and he had to figure this was the most stupid thing he's ever done. Next to jumping out of a ship into open space amongst a geth-ridden asteroid field, anyways. Somehow, staring down the barrel of a gun wasn't quite as terrifying as free-floating in open space.

"You really don't know much about Omega, do you?"

Cocky, she turned her head in a mocking gesture meant to show she was 'thinking about it'. "Umm, I'm pretty sure a gun to the face means 'Fuck off' anywhere in the galaxy." She smiled to him. It was a cold, condescending smile.

Somewhere behind him, Targold must have been able to hear the conversation, as he let out a loud, guttural laugh.

_Oh, she's a feisty one,_ he thought. _Careful, Kevin, you don't want to get TOO interested._ "Maybe you were too busy with that pad there, but the last two people to point a gun at me fell dead on the spot." He spoke with such casualty that it might have been labeled as disinterest. Threat or disinterest, it would serve. He had no intention of hurting this asari and her very stupid, blunt threats, but he had a reputation to keep up and an example of her haughty inexperience had to be made.

"You're all talk, but you're pretty useless when you don't have that gun of yours in hand." Bold talk, but there was a flash of uneasiness in her eyes. Maybe the inability to read his face was helping him more than he thought.

He knew how he would do this. The way she held the gun spoke of too much experience with firearms to just melee from her hands, so he needed an indirect approach to disarm her first. Once that was done, he just had to have her put in a position where biotics wouldn't be a threat. Gunpoint or a takedown would handle that well enough.

Kevin lifted his arm off the table and sat back with his arms up in surrender, gesturing for her to just relax. "You need to calm down, lady. All I came here for was—"

Her anger flared for a brief moment. "All you came here for was to get a grab at my—"

Kevin, still as stone until the very last split second, kneed the underside of the table as hard as he could, which sent the small thing flying upward. It crashed into the raging asari's arm and knocked the pistol upward, effectively taking all immediate threat of being shot out of the few seconds he would need to complete his move.

As the scene around him seemed to slow, he got to his feet and shoved the still airborne table into her, causing the chair she sat upon to tilt back so far that gravity took it. She, the table, and the chair fell with a noisy crack and a surprised grunt. Without even waiting for her to figure out where she _should _have been, he stepped forward and leaned down to take the wrist of the hand holding the pistol and he twisted it until her fingers naturally, though forcefully, uncurled enough to let the weapon get away.

Finally, to make his point clear, he rolled her onto her stomach, pushed a knee into her lower back, and twisted the held arm behind her to pin her still and be sure that no biotics would be able to come flying at him. She struggled under him, of course, but the sharp knee in her back could be moved to persuade her to knock it off. Once he could feel her struggling recede as she finally admitted to herself that she was pinned, he leaned in.

"You really _don't_ know anything about Omega, do you?" he said in a half-whisper. "If you're calling for a name you suspect to be here and can't find them, it's because they don't want to be found."

Once the asari understood why he was really there, her apparent fury subsided some. He backed up off of her but took her gun in his hand by the barrel until such time as he could be sure she wasn't going to shoot him out of spite. Truth be told, he didn't know if such a time would ever come.

"Why don't have a more casual conversation, hmm?" Kevin gestured towards a nearby booth. Again, he heard Targold laughing. This was more likely at how quickly the asari went down rather than the conversation, if he had to guess.

The asari got up, scowling hard at him, and brushed herself off while mumbling under her breath. "(Son of a bitch…) Are you going to give me my gun back, or am I going to have to take it?"

Kevin ignored that and took a seat, gesturing for her to do the same. He placed the pistol on the bench seat next to him to keep it from her reach. This table was fixed to the floor and wall; there'd be no table-kicking antics here. "So. What's your story, Sweet Cheeks?"

Her jaw clenched at the pet name. "I'm looking for someone very important to… to me."

"Just someone?" he asked impatiently.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "A human named Kevin Folner."

Kevin tilted his head to give the appearance that he was racking his brain. "Must be a pretty lucky kid." His tone gave suggestion as to what he meant.

The asari's head flinched back and she scowled again. "Don't get your suit all wet, quarian. He's part of a hefty research project I was a part of. I'll say no more than that." She crossed her arms, defiant. "Asshole."

Kevin chuckled. "Now now, there's no need to be calling any names, miss…?"

"Matriarch Sugar-Tits," she spat, apparently rather fluent in human colloquialism.

Kevin nodded, offering up another chuckle. "I like that even better than my name for you. However…" He leaned forward, laying his arms on the table and lacing his six fingers together. "I may know this individual you seek, and he might not be so inclined to let himself be found if the people searching for him are straight up liars. He's not very fond of liars, you see."

"You're an annoying little shit, aren't you?" she asked, gripping the table harder by the second.

"Do you want to talk to him or not?"

"I want to _meet_ him. Can you make that happen or am I wasting my time here?"

"Who's asking?"

The asari threw her head back and growled loudly in frustration, but finally relented. "Maela T'Vess."

That surprised Kevin. It was a name he was familiar with, though only in the hearing. He was once again glad for the obscuring nature of his helmet. If he remembered correctly from all those logs he listened to, Maela was the asari geneticist who assisted the Cerberus cell he was brought into the world from. She helped shape the framework of his very DNA to ensure that he could actually get use out of his biotics. A million questions flashed through his mind, but he'd have time enough for that when they met face to face. Well, metaphorically speaking.

Even still, one red-flagged question lingered in his mind. _What the hell is she doing on Omega?_

For now, he leaned back, nodded once, and crossed his arms. Finally, it was time to get down to business. "I can. I'll inform him of your arrival. You'll be meeting him one day from now at an apartment in Omega's first district's main block. The apartment is here." He tapped on his omni-tool and sent the coordinates of his apartment to Maela.

Once she had the coordinates he passed along, she quickly grabbed his arm. "That name must not pass beyond the two of you, understand?"

Kevin looked down to her hand, then back up to her. "Yes, yes, of course. You can trust me on that."

"I don't trust you at all," she said pointedly, "but you're the only lead I have right now." She let go of his arm and gave him a measuring stare. "So who exactly are you, and why _are_ you the only I have?"

"I'm known on Omega almost exclusively as 'The Suit'. Not my choice, mind you, but it serves. And I'm your only lead because I know the right people and know where to send you. Truth be told, no one has seen Kevin Folner on the station for months."

"And you're just going to magic him up for me?" she asked in fairly evident disbelief.

Kevin's only reply was a confident nod.

Maela sighed. "Goddess help you if you're lying to me. I'm sure enough people here know you so that I can find you again if I want."

Kevin picked up the pistol that was sitting next to him. "If that should happen, hopefully then you'll bring something a little more effective than this." He handed the pistol to her, grip first.

Maela took the pistol from him with another scowl and a dagger-eyed glare. It was clear that this one was not accustomed to being talked down to. And why should she be? She's a renowned geneticist, if those logs were anything to go by. _As if that meant anything to anyone around here,_ he thought. _She needs to learn that her accomplishments mean squat to ninety-nine percent of the galaxy sooner or later. I just happen to be a huge part of that remaining one percent…_

The asari left rather unceremoniously and without any further words or grumbles. Once she was out of sight beyond the entrance to the pub, Kevin got up and moved back towards Targold, where three of the turian muscle for the Den were standing there waiting for him and conversing casually with the massive patron. Strangely, they didn't seem interested in shooting him. Maybe they knew he still worked as a bouncer at the door to Afterlife, or maybe Targold hadn't opened his mouth to breathe in the past twenty minutes. Hah. Right.

"Ah great. What am I getting kicked out for this time?"

One of the turians, one Kevin knew only as 'Beric', casually waved the Vindicator rifle gripped tightly in his hands towards him, though more as a conversational gesture than a threat. "Darg's sick of the noise you're making, so he wants you out." He flicked an armored talon at the overturned table nobody had seen fit to set right.

"I suppose I should be thankful he didn't come tell me himself," Kevin mused aloud. A round of nods confirmed this as a good thing. People escorted out by Quash Darg generally went to a clinic first. "Alright alright, fine. I don't think I'll get the chance to come back here for a while anyways." He looked to the krogan, who'd just finished off his third tankard with a sonic boom of a belch. "Coming?"

The krogan visually thought to himself for a moment before tossing a chit on the counter to pay for his drinks. "Why not. This place is dull as dirt when you're not here to shoot up idiots."

Beric escorted Kevin out of Fortune's Den with little more than a small shove to make sure he got _some_ sort of physical show out of the situation. Out on the streets, Kevin stopped to stretch and visually scan the area as he usually did. This area was always busy and full of bodies, and there were no shortage of people to keep an eye on when taking a stroll. If the nearest drunk krogan wasn't looking to 'accidentally' knock you over, there was always a salarian looking to rope you into a scheme, a batarian looking to mug you, a quarian trying to electronically transfer your personal funds out of your chits, or a human looking for target practice. Such was the way of Omega.

A very short silence between them followed as they began to walk along with the diverse crowds towards the apartment blocks. That silence didn't last very long, however.

"So?" Targold asked expectantly.

Kevin smiled to himself. "She's coming to my apartment tomorrow," he said, sounding quite pleased with himself.

"Hah!" the krogan roared as he gave Kevin a friendly, but still devastating punch on the shoulder. "You're quick in a fight _and_ to the bed. Did she fancy you before or after you threw that table in her face?"

Kevin stumbled sideways from the punch and rubbed his arm. "Oof. Ah, yeah. It was after. I get the feeling she likes it rough."

"No other way to do it, in my opinion," Targold with a sagely nod. Hah. A sagely krogan nod. "If I get a mate that can't take it rough, it stops being 'mating' and turns into 'masturbating into a warm body'. But with crying. I hate crying. Irks me to the bone."

Kevin laughed heartily at his explanation and walked around a batarian recruiting for some no-name gang that was likely to be ripped to shreds in the next few days. "I'll try to remember that next time you take someone into your room alone, Targold. Hey, speaking of finding mates, did you ever hear back from that message you sent off?"

"The one to Tuchanka?" Targold never walked around people. They moved their stuff and got out of the way when he walked on the streets. Maybe it was the claymore holstered on his back. "No. I'm hearing a lot of other krogan talk, though. Something damn big is going on out there."

"Is clan Urdnot involved?" Kevin asked. He watched some unfortunate salarian careen sideways off of his feet when he failed to move for his massive companion.

"Right at the center as far as I can tell. Something that's involving the other clans, too."

They turned a corner and passed through a number of massive doors that led to the residential apartments for the station. "Why not head back there and find out for yourself, especially if your clan's at the center stage?"

Targold laughed in derision. "Hah. I may be clan Urdnot, but I'm hardly connected with any of them. It's like some big hot-shot family that's more than content to let you remain forgotten in the galaxy. I prefer it here where people know who I am."

Kevin shrugged. "They may need you there."

Again, Targold laughed. "Hah! Next you'll be telling me the Citadel council needs the Blood Pack to join C-Sec." The krogan shoved another sorry soul out of his way to vent some misplaced anger and shook his head. "Maybe I'll head there someday. All the females are there, and I might one day grow as soft as you and want to contribute to the krogan survival efforts, but not now. Besides, there's more good fighting here."

"Unless that thing that's going on is about to be war," Kevin said, refusing to let it go.

"War on Tuchanka is crap. It's messy and full of has-been warlords trying to get more battle glory for themselves and their krant. You know I prefer the personal touch of smaller battles."

Kevin's eyes itched badly, but he had to settle for crushing them shut over and over. It wasn't very effective. "I've never heard of a krogan opposed to war before."

"I'm not opposed to war," he said definitive. "I'm opposed to _krogan _wars."

They parted ways shortly after that, Kevin to his apartment and Targold to wherever Targold goes when not at a bar. When he reached his place, he opened the door remotely with a quick passcode from his omni-tool an approached slowly. It was pitch black inside, as he never left even the most cursory of door lights on. This was intentional, and the reason had saved his life more than once.

Just before he got near the door, he paused to ensure no one was watching then dropped down to crawl on his stomach. Using his forearms and elbows to pull him along, he squirmed his way into the door and inside his apartment. When he had crawled far enough in for his feet to be beyond the doorframe, he rolled to the right once, twice, three times. All this was done in fluid, practiced motions, and it wasn't until after the door closed and he completed that third roll that he groped to the right of his waist for a small console. He found it with little difficulty and pressed a small button on its face. Only then did all the electronics in the apartment—lights included—come alive.

His apartment was small and hardly homely. It was the color of unpainted walls and gray metal floor, and any furniture he had—a queen-size bed, a chair near it, and a small square table with two chairs in the higher, non-separated kitchen on other half of the room—was sterile white or polished chrome long since tarnished. He didn't bother furnishing this place more than that, as it was intended to be only a place of rest and refuge between missions. That's what the intent was several years ago when he first set it up, anyhow.

Now he had been living in it for two months and was wishing it had a little more life. _Even a man as numb as I've become can only stare at this sorry place for so long_, he thought. Money spent to place extra furniture or add some décor would have been a waste, though. Even today he seldom spent time in his apartment out of desire, and he never had visitors that warranted more chairs, tables, or a sofa. _No one visits a vagabond quarian with hacked up legs for any reason. Not until tomorrow._

Maela would be the only _living_ person to visit his apartment since he took it. All else died upon entry, save for him. He had no intention of killing her as she stepped through the door, though, so that meant he had to clean up the entryway. Said entryway was the reason for his unusual manner of getting inside and the means of killing intruders. He got to his feet and approached the amalgam of extremely fine filament wires and rigged weapons that surrounded the door. There were three wires for every rigged gun, all mounted specifically to coat the entire entryway in gunfire once any of them were triggered. The trap had reached a pointlessly high level complexity due to his adding to it over a couple years with the assumption he'd never take it down.

"Why use such an obsolete and tricky trigger for a trap like that? Why not just use door triggers like most well-adjusted paranoids of modern times?" Targold once asked him while they were discussing the reason why the krogan could never relax at Kevin's place.

"Mechanically rigged weapons like this can't be detected by electronics scanners," Kevin had explained back. "No one with the intention of collecting a head ever enters someone else's turf without a few scans to see what they're up against, and Omega's walls and doors are perfect for preventing through-wall layout scans. Additionally, mechanically rigged traps can't be hacked, and with so many tech experts in the gangs today, that counts for quite a bit."

"Spoken like a true paranoid," Targold just said in response. He never really approved of such tactics, calling them 'coward's schemes', but Kevin never paid that any mind. Targold was krogan after all and always preferred to charge an armed attacker and punch him or her in the face to ensuring the attacker never actually attacked anything to begin with.

Unfortunately, the complexity was starting to rear its ugly head now, and he was wondering to himself exactly why he let it get this way. _I'll just show them how to get around the wires,_ he always told himself. That prospect has since lost its ideal convenience, and now he had to undo the entire lethal web before Maela showed up. This might have been a simple, if lengthy, task with ten fingers, but he was limited to six thanks to his quarian envirosuit. Sure, he could take it off and get all his fingers back, but he'd have to sacrifice the precious kinetic barriers the suit came with and the slightest wrong twitch could set the trap off. He needed the kinetic barriers as well as his own biotic supplement if he hoped to survive an accident, given the two shotguns and three heavy pistols aiming at him _on this side_. The guns were old and under-maintained, but he made sure that they fired on command and he knew these wouldn't be seeing constant action.

_Maybe this is a little bit overkill, _he reasoned as he gathered dark energy to himself and coated his body in a biotic barrier just outside of the rather short effective range of his kinetic barriers. _Note to self: Think it through entirely._

As he worked, his thoughts traveled to the logs where he first heard Maela T'Vess's name. _If Maela is here, does that mean Liam and the others are too?_ All the more reason not to have this nasty surprise up by the time they show. He wondered if they were still on the run from Cerberus, too. The audio he received from the Shadow Broker implied as much, and he'd listened to that so many times he could quote the entire thing word-for-word.

It was then he recalled hearing them plan to find Maela so that they could do something about Kevin's headaches and neural degradation associated with being, well, him. The experimental project that he was birthed from made him the last surviving natural biotic. He was the only human who could make powerful mass effect distortion fields on par or better than most biotic humans, only he didn't have any implants. It didn't come without cost, however. All of the other subjects of that project were dead by now, most having never made it through their second week of life.

On top of that were the headaches. _The headaches. _These manifestations, born of some problem with the way his nervous system works with his brain, were wrought of pure, crippling agony. L2 migraines were a prick in the finger compared to these, or so Kevin assumed. He'd never seen any L2 biotics fall to the floor, instantly disabled, with how overwhelming the pain was.

'Neural Cascade Incidents', Liam had called them, and they were what killed his brothers and sisters who managed to survive their early years. Kevin knew that his own final, lethal NCI was coming, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had one a month ago, right on time with how frequent they were getting. He was sure that one would kill him with how it felt. It was only a matter of time until the next one came, and each was just one step closer to absolute neurological self-destruction. The next could be his end, or the one after that. It took a lot of mental effort to not let this knowledge send him spiraling into depressed madness. It was never an easy thing to stare death in the face to see who flinched first.

Around four hours into the task of taking down his safety net, he finally managed to disarm enough of the trap that he could safely remove the envirosuit without fear of getting shot to bits due to an errant twitch. He needed a break from that taxing task anyways and his eyes still itched madly, watering up as a result.

He moved over to his bed and began to remove the many ornaments that had to come off before the suit itself could. His pistol, a heavily modified Kassa Fabrication military-class Phalanx, was the first to go. Second came the sheathed monomolecular blade that was strapped around his waist and sat horizontally across the small of his back with the handle off to his right for quick access. Third, and finally, he untied the wrappings around his left bicep to reveal a unique metal-on-metal emblem attached to a strap of crimson and black that wrapped around his arm.

The emblem was in the shape of a wide T with the bottom of the central shaft gradually flaring out until it was as wide as the top. The two ends of the horizontal line across the top shot down and curved inwards before finally terminating half-way down. He knew this emblem well, even if the rest of the galaxy does not. The emblem of the Xelvas'taersh—the elite quarian squads from days before their exile. It had been revived when Siri'Kortel and a small collection of her marines joined with him and Ralik to embark on a journey out into deep space to explore the unknown for the Migrant Fleet. Those days seemed a thousand years ago now.

Kevin unwrapped the strap and hung it on one of two hooks on the wall near his bed. That settled, he moved on to getting the environmental suit off. He was quite adept at this by now, since he had made the conscious decision to remove the suit two to three times a week when safely locked away in his apartment. He had no intention of letting his immune system atrophy like a real quarian, and Omega's recycled and poorly filtered air had plenty enough crap floating about to give it a good exercise every time.

It only took him around twenty minutes to remove the whole thing on this particular try. The first time he ever removed it, even with Arla'Tavval's direct assistance and a roundabout way of shutting everything down quickly, it took near an hour. She was so insistent that he be extra careful with the various clasps and locks that kept the suit as one piece that he assumed they were fragile compared to the rest of the suit's parts. After all, these things weren't meant to be fiddled with very often. By now, however, he had to figure his suit had seen more removals than that of ten quarians combined.

He sighed in relief as he finally was able to work that itch out of his eyes, but a good whiff of the apartment's atmosphere caused his face to scrunch up. "God. Why does Omega have to smell so bad?" he asked the walls. He preferred to leave the olfactory filters of his suit disabled so that he didn't have to stomach the nasty and ever-oppressive smog of filth every day. The downside was that he had to get used to the smell all over again every time he removed the suit, and that wasn't exactly a small feat. Still, the choking, dusty air was preferable to a withering immune system in his eyes, so it was worth the repulsive few minutes.

After hanging the empty suit on a recently-installed hook near the bed, he pulled on a basic dockworker's uniform; something he bought just to have for clothes when not in his environmental suit. It was a bland mix of a dark grey shirt, faded blood-orange cargo pants, and black boots. Another hour and a half later, the dangerous web had been undone and he had started to collect the guns up. He laid them out by type and size on his small kitchen table, using the chairs when he ran out of space. He made himself a quick bite to eat and finally decided that he should try and grab some sleep before his visitor showed. _The last thing I'll want is to be slow-witted and sleep-deprived when that asari comes knocking down my door._

"Dim lights," he commanded the air and the lights dropped to a sleepy level. He kicked off his boots and crawled into his bed, falling asleep within a few minutes. He was beat, and hadn't slept in a couple days due to being on watch for the amateur bounty hunters that he had taken care of earlier in the day.

He woke suddenly only four hours into his nap. The room was dark, but he was surrounded by the familiar orange glow of his omni-tool. An urgent message was blinking, trying desperately with visuals and a notable beep to get his attention. It was from Targold.

"What the hell…" Kevin mumbled to himself as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes and sat up in his bed. He spent a minute getting his focus together and attempting to fight off the drowsiness with moderate success. He then opened the text message to read it.

kevin theres a group of sketchy types heading to your place i think. that asari

you talked to yesterday was with them. bringing friends? you sly drell. i didn't see any

guns but you never know what people are hiding these days. they DID have long coats.

–URDNOT TARGOLD

Kevin's bows furrowed together. He was not expecting an entourage. He looked up to his doorway, completely open and devoid of danger-obliterating traps that might have helped him negotiate entry terms with such a host.

"Crap."


End file.
